Ethics and Video Games Podcast

After 76 episodes and 11 years of talking about ethics and video games, we're ready to give you.... THE BIG PICTURE! - an organized overview of all of the ethical issues in the world of video games we're currently aware of in terms of the responsiblities that different stakeholders in this world have to each other.  And all of this in under 52 minutes :)  -----------------------------------------...

There are over 50 million players over the age of 50 in the USA alone and those numbers will only continue to grow for an activity that's too often viewed as "kids' stuff".   How and when do older players engage with online gaming communities?   Do designers need to be concerned about monetizing techniques that might take advantage of vulnerable older adults?   What can societies do to help older...

Games are particularly fertile grounds for extremist recruitment.   Why is that?   What's special about games and gaming culture that might make them attractive spaces for recruitment?   How does extremist recruitment work in games?   What is being done about it right now?   And what can be done to help prevent the spread of extremism through games? ------------------------------------------------...

When game companies simulate cultures in their games they usually focus on the tropes that their intended audiences have about those cultures and then design their game around those tropes.   Is there anything wrong with that?   If so, what? What can game designers do to present cultures – present and past – more respectfully? ---------------------------------------------------------------   Andre...

Gaming and game development work differently for the developed global north than the developing global south.   What are those differences?   How does the global south play and pay differently?   Why is it so hard to start a game development company in the global south?   How can the gaming world better take these things into consideration in order to be more inclusive to   the global south? -----...

In a couple of recent episodes guests have mentioned concerns about battle passes.   So, in this episode we decided to explore how they work, how they differ from traditional   subscription models or microtransactions, why they're so popular today with game companies, and whether they raise any serious ethical concerns. ---------------------------------------------------------------   Daniel Josep...

What can college esport teams do to blunt harassment against female players and make esports more inclusive?   Are they in a unique position to help solve these problems in esports?   We chat with representatives from Kean University about their attempts to make their own esport teams more inclusive to women. --------------------------------------------------------------- Theresa Lee is a returnin...

How can ads for video games and for stuff in games be deceptive or manipulative?   What do   they need to consider when targeting kids?   What sort of guidance do they get from governments or their own industry groups?   We chat with Dr. Celia Pontin, former UK advertising regulator specializing in video games. --------------------------------------------------------------- A former advertising re...

In this episode we explore some of the ethical issues related to kinks in video games – mostly adult ones.   How can games allow us to explore kinks?   What are some ethical pitfalls designers should consider?   How do issues like representation and consent fit in?   --------------------------------------------------------------- Kate Gray is a games writer and journalist with a specialist interes...

We've rarely discussed the specific category of adult games on this podcast.   So, we do so here and now and honestly, with a bit more speculation and off-the-cuff "let's try this idea out and see if it sticks" mentality.   We explore whether adult games should be treated differently than other types of pornography, whether age-gating is actually desirable, and a bunch of other issues.   ---------...

What should we think about when we bring sex and intimacy into video games?   In this episode, we explore issues of player sexuality, in-game intimacy, representations of consent, and how video games can take chances and explore sexuality responsibly. --------------------------- Our guest for this episode are: Zhia Zariko is a media and communication expat into games design and development. Origin...

How do players morally engage with games?   What can user experience research and moral psychology tell us about how players experience and think about ethical decisions in games?   We chat with philosopher Paul Formosa and Game Designer Malcolm Ryan about their collaborative ongoing research exploring these questions. --------------------------- Our guest for this episode are: Paul Formosa is a P...

Games are supposed to be fun and playing in a historical setting or replaying historical events can be really fun.   But when does the use of history become morally problematic by misrepresenting that history, leaving out alternative perspectives, or failing to communicate to the player when the game is or is not meant to be historically accurate?      --------------------------- Our guest for thi...

The monsters we see in video games are usually antagonists that we destroy without remorse.   But what is a monster and are there ethical questions that arise in relation to how they're represented?   In what ways can monsters utilize racist and sexist tropes in harmful ways?   Can we treat a type of monsters as a race of pure evil?   And is there anything that monsters might do that is beyond the...

How would you make a game about a topic as important, complex, hard to talk about,, and NOT fun at all as domestic violence against children? We chat with Mathew Staunton about his game in progress on this topic and the ethical and design challenges it faces. --------------------------- Our guest for this episode is Mathew Staunton, Ph. D. Originally north Dublin, he is a historian, publisher and...

Toxicity in online gaming is an incredibly complex problem to solve. Teams of moderators often seem hopelessly outmatched by the amount of toxicity and its sometimes ambiguous nature.  But, what if we brought an AI into the game to help us with both toxicity and fraud by bots, which are essentially other AI?  In this episode we look at one company's attempt to do just that. -----------------------...

Making money playing games on Twitch or YouTube sounds like a dream come true!  But money never comes without strings attached.  Streamers face pressures to build up their audience, ask for financial support, land and keep sponsors.  It's hard work and many burn out.  Meanwhile, there's questions about the ways Twitch and YouTube benefit from their labor.  What are the ethics of making money playi...

This is part 2 of our first two-part exploration of predatory monetization.  Our guest, Elena Petrovskaya has been researching player complaints about monetization and has categorized them into 35 different types of potentially predatory monetization techniques – from pay or wait to the use of battle passes to aggressive advertising and dark interface design patterns.  In part 1 we went over all o...

When it comes to monetization in games, what do players see as misleading, unfair, or aggressive?  Elena Petrovskaya asked this question to over 1000 players and organized their complaints to create a taxonomy of 35 potentially predatory monetization techniques organized under 8 different domains.  There was so much here to talk about, we ended up with our first two-parter episode.  So, in this ep...

When a player steps into a game, often that game will have a political structure and the player's choices in that structure may respond to their sense of justice.  That sense of justice can also connect us as groups or factions in games.  Can these factions engage in unethical in-game political action?  Can players in massive multi-player games be considered citizens of those gameworlds in some se...

Putting blockchain and NFTs into games and marketing that as Play to Earn promises a revolution in gaming that will make money for both game studios and players.  It's a win-win for everybody! – or is it just hype created by cryptobros to ruin games by turning them into money-making machines?  What is the promise of Play to Earn supposed to be and what ethical concerns does it raise with regards t...

Putting blockchain and NFTs into games and marketing that as Play to Earn promises a revolution in gaming that will make money for both game studios and players.  It's a win-win for everybody! – or is it just hype created by cryptobros to ruin games by turning them into money-making machines?  What is the promise of Play to Earn supposed to be and what ethical concerns does it raise with regards t...

Most players think that loot boxes (essentially randomized rewards schemes) are a form of gambling, and many are concerned that they'll bring the same dangers of gambling to gaming.  Some have called for governments to regulate loot boxes in games as they do with other forms of gambling.  What have governments done about this?  Has any of it worked?  Is any of it necessary? -----------------------...

Games have been getting more and more gamblified in recent years.  This has occurred both within games and in terms of gambling on esports and game items out of the games themselves.  What is gamblification in video games?  How does it occur?  Where can we expect it to lead?  And should we be concerned about it in the way that we're concerned as societies about traditional gambling? --------------...

Players, game devs, artists, voice actors, marketing people, and everyone else that works in the game industry - even game design students - sometimes need to talk to someone who understands how the video game universe can be uniquely emotionally taxing and difficult to navigate.  The Games and Online Harassment Hotline was set up two years ago to help! We think they're an amazing resource for the...